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FWWWWTTT! !
"THIRTEEN HUNDRED HOURS! MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!"
Second lieutenant Kureiji's whistle and command pierced through the frigid afternoon air. The grumble and sputter of old M3A1 Stuart light tanks followed soon after. Steel helmet strapped to his head, Altare watched the other tanks in his platoon roll out into the forest from his cupola.
"AAAGH, fuck ," Altare's driver shouted as he banged on the rusty walls of their tank. "Not only is this bucket a' shit loud, she's cramped as fuck! " He stepped on the foot throttle and pulled the steering levers as he navigated through the mushy, cold terrain of the Xenokuni forest. "Damn... steerin' this thing's a workout," he panted. "It's sticky as hell; someone back in ordnance forgot to clean the last guy who died in 'ere out a' my damn steering levers !"
The bald man shuffled and wiggled around the 37 millimeter tank shells next to him. "Fuckin'... this tank is fuckin' tiny , can't get shit around. We're supposed to be fighting in this thing?!"
"RIGHT?!" The gunner eased into his seat next to the M5 cannon's breech clumsily. "Sights look crap too... there's fuckin' gunk in 'ere," he murmured as he looked through the periscope.
Altare sighed at the rambling and whining of his crew. "I told 'em to check the sights. Place the ammo in the right place. But no, why listen to the Pavie-lover?" he thought to himself. His breath fogged, but his hands did not tremble, keeping a firm grasp on the grip of the tank's cupola-mounted thirty-caliber machine gun.
"A scarf would be nice..."
But his exposed neck would have to brave the cold whether he wanted to or not. He cleared this throat and watched his surroundings, his eyes darting around and scanning the evergreens for any signs of Pavolian royal blue.
From his perch, he saw one Stuart tank ahead of him and another Stuart behind, their treads squeaking in a disconcerting cacophony. Together, they formed the lead column — Section A. Their commanders, unlike him, seemed to be in their tanks; they were buttoned-up shut.
"The other three are... god-knows-where now," he whispered as he tried to peer through the snow-swept forest. "The loudtenant's probably with 'em, Section B."
Bang...! Ratatatatat...!
Suddenly, gunfire erupted from somewhere deep within the evergreens. Thumps of cannon fire and the rhythmic staccato of machine guns echoed from afar. Altare's head was on a swivel, looking around to pinpoint the source of the commotion, but his gaze was met with only the stillness of the snow.
"S-Steady, steady! " Altare urged as he gripped his machine gun tighter, knuckles as white as the winter forest around his armored column.
His breathing slowed, and suddenly, it seemed like he could count every snowflake falling around him. He saw every tremble in the leaves, traced the clouds floating out of the Stuart in front of his, and heard the shuffle of snow a couple of dozen meters ahead of him...
"Wait, the shuffle of snow?"
His head snapped to his northeast. There, behind evergreen trunks and shrubs, he spotted royal blue fluttering. He snatched a pair of binoculars and counted the royal blues, tracking their motions.
"Eight soldiers. Four Pavolian anti-tank rifles."
Altare took a deep breath.
"PAVIE A.T. INFANTRY! TWO O' CLOOOOOOCK!"
He roared and trained his machine gun at the specks of royal blue, squeezing the trigger until his joints went pale.
Next to him, he heard shouting and loud grumbling coming from within the Stuart next to his. Its commander popped its hatch open, screaming in bewilderment at Altare.
"OI, DUMBASS," he shouted, " WHAT PAVIE INFANTR—"
Whizz. . . CLANG! PING-PING-TWANG!
Enemy fire bounced and zipped outside the other two Section A Stuarts' hulls, taking their crews by surprise. He could hear their squeals and panicked cries reverberating from within their tanks' steel hulls.
"H-Holy shi— TURN THE TURRET , FUCK DAMN IT! TURN THOSE FUCKS INTO PAVIE PASTE," the other commander barked at his crew as he ducked behind the walls of his tank's cupola, rattling .30-caliber fire around blindly.
Finally, the other Stuart commander jolted out of his cupola and readied his .30-caliber machine gun too, joining Altare, albeit firing clumsily and uncontrolledly.
"WATCH OUT FOR FLANKING PAVIES," Altare shouted until his throat burned, "AND FIRE IN BURSTS, DAMN YOU ALL!" His roaring orders seemed to get the other commanders back in the game, as their armored column finally began to deliver consistent walls of lead upon the Pavolians that threatened their positions.
"IT'S WORKIN'," Altare could hear another commander scream, "WE'RE GETTIN' 'EM GOOD NOW!"
DAKA-DAKA-DAKA ! DAKA-DAKA-DAKA !
Despite the sudden heat of battle erupting around him, Altare's training kicked in and kept his heart still. He squeezed the trigger with practiced discipline, shooting three-round burst after three-round burst into the white forest. The other Stuart tank commanders echoed Altare's call and followed suit.
Their machine gun rounds tore through the bulk of the Pavolian soldiers. Altare saw the Pavolians scrambling to dig foxholes, but scores of them fell to the hails of Elysian lead. The snow and the trees were painted crimson and tattered royal blue littered the trail.
Still, the Pavolians kept coming, screaming at the top of their lungs—
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"
Hearing a cry from outside his field of vision, Altare whipped his head back. His green glare met that of a Pavolian boy charging towards him. Bestial rage painted the boy's face as he charged Altare's tank with a belt of grenades strapped to his bare chest. The boy's roar rang in Altare's ears, still unbroken by puberty.
Altare shuddered, but his body moved on its own. He swiveled his belt-fed machine gun at him and mowed him down full-auto.
DAKA-DAKA-DAKA-DAKA-DAKA-DAKA-DAKA-DAKA!
He eased the trigger. A chill ran up his spine.
"...What the," Altare huffed, "that was a fuckin' ki—"
K A - BOOM ! !
The Pavolian boy exploded into a fine, red mist. His innards and chunks of flesh flew everywhere. The blast splattered blood on the tank and the side of Altare's face. Touching his cheek, his hand shook, but not only from the cold. He stared at his bloodied palm and tasted sharp, warm iron in the corner of his mouth.
He lurched over his tank and vomited.
He huffed and panted, but the feeling barely left. Still, Altare winced and wiped his face with the back of his hand. His face still painted in crimson, he cried out to the other tanks in his section.
"S-Stay the course! We have to make it to the rendezvous point!"
The other commanders nodded. With that, they marched past the handful of cut-down Pavolians, carrying on through the snow, dirt and blood.
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"There it is," Altare murmured as he looked up a hill through his binoculars. "THE OBJECTIVE, THE MANOR, IS UP AHEAD NOW," he shouted at the tanks behind him, the other two having allowed him to take point at some point in the march through the dense woodlands.
RATATATATA! !
As they approached, Pavolian machine gun nests surrounding the manor laid down blankets of fire at the armored column. Green tracers whizzed by Section A's column, spurring them to scramble to cover.
"BUTTON UP, BUTTON UP!" Altare cried.
He and the other commanders ducked into their cupolas and slammed their hatches shut. The rattle and clang of Pavie bullets on their armor rang in Altare's ears.
"They can't get through, they can't fuckin' touch us! YEAAAAAH," the bald man in Altare's crew screamed as he returned fire with his sponson-mounted thirty-caliber machine gun. His bullets thumped as they landed into Pavolian sandbags, but the clouds of Pavolian lead kept coming their way.
Their tanks slowed down to a crawl. Then, Altare raised his voice and shouted his first fire orders on enemy targets.
"Gunner! High-explosive. Machine gun nests. Twelve-hundred!"
Altare's gunner slid a 37 millimeter shell through the breech and declares, "High-explosive, up!"
Shakily, he peered through his periscope and stammers, "I-Identify!"
"FIRE, FIRE!" Altare ordered.
"ON THE WAY!" the gunner shouted, firing their M5 main cannon. The whole Stuart tank shook, but the gunner kept his face planted on the periscope with a cold sweat that streaked down his visage.
"...H-Hit! They're smoked, " the gunner declared.
"FUCK, YEAH!" The bald loader roared. "STICK IT TO 'EM!"
Altare trembled again. Adrenaline coursed through him and spurred him once more. He gave his orders with as much confidence as he could muster.
"FIRE AT WILL! FIRE. AT. WILL!"
With that command, the gunner continued to fire high-explosive shots at the Pavolian machine gun nests.
"ANOTHER ROUND, COMING UP," the bald man shouted as he kept their M5 loaded with 37 millimeters.
Through his own periscope, Altare saw the other Stuarts of their formation fire salvo after salvo of their cannons too. Little by little, the downpour of lead that struck Altare's tank weakened and green Pavolian tracers became sparse in his sights. Altare huffed and wiped his brow of more sweat with a deep sigh.
Altare reached for the radio handset and tuned into their platoon's frequency.
"Come in, Section B leader. This is Section A leader," Altare spoke steadily, talking like the manuals taught him to. "We've encountered Pavolian machine gun nests and have engaged them. They've mostly been dealt with, but we're buttoned up and blind... We need Section B to confirm location and punch through. Over."
Radio static answered back.
" Tsk. Section B leader, do you hear me!? Over!"
Again, the crackle of radio static.
"Section B can suck a fat one," the loader guffawed. "We have these Pavie bastards in the bag! Another one, on the way!"
BOOM!
The tanks of Section A continued to pound the Pavolian machine gun nests with high-explosives. Eventually, the nests went silent. However, the distant cannon fire from the forest had disappeared too.
Altare's hands grew cold. He found himself rubbing them together shakily.
He clicked his radio and switched to the section frequency. "Section A commanders," he directed, "I'm unbuttoning to survey. The rest of you, keep yourselves shut."
He stood up on the turret basket and opened the hatch of his cupola. Frigid, biting winds greeted him. He winced and looked up to the wintry sky, watching a myriad of birds flying from the forest where the cannon fire once reverberated from. There, he saw plumes of smoke rising up to the heavens and evergreen trees being felled. The snow on the leaves trembled, some falling to the ground.
"...Something's coming," he whispered to himself.
Through the evergreens of the Xenokuni Forest, he saw Pavolian royal blue painted over steel in the forest tearing through dirt and snow.
Pavolian Panzer III medium tanks scan the forest, their turrets traversing like the heads of beasts prowling for prey.
There were three of them.
"...Three more than what the fucking intel said there would be."
Stumbling back into the turret, Altare scrambled for his radio handset and switched the channels.
"S-SECTION A TANKS, THIS IS SECTION A LEADER," Altare shouted, breaking protocol. "THREE PAVIE PANZER THREES APPROACHING, NINE O' CLOCK! IT'S AN AMBUSH, I REAPEAT, A FUCKING PANZER AMBUS—"
Whizz... B O O — B O O — BOOM ! ! !
Before Altare could finish his alert, the Pavolian Panzers fired their first volley on the move. Three shots of heavy five-centimeter guns whizzed through the foliage and impacted the snowy forest trail beneath the Stuarts' tracks, rattling their crews. The panzers' eight-millimeter machine guns opened-fire too with tremendous volume, returning green tracers to Altare's view with a vengeance.
Altare shouted rapid-fire orders but kept his gaze just barely above the hatch. He watched his three Stuart tanks scramble to angle their hulls and train their cannons towards the enemy.
Whirr... B O O — B O O — BOOM ! ! !
The Pavolian cannons tore into the forest path once more and fired their second volley.
K A - BANG-BANG-FWOOM ! !
Altare felt a massive warmth erupt behind him. Turning around, he saw the Stuart to his six engulfed in a ball of flame, its turret popping into the air like a fiery champagne cork and landing not far from the column.
. . . . . .FWOOSH !
Altare craned his head even more, peering to the end of their column. He saw the third and final Stuart in his section catch fire in its engine block, a pillar of flame shooting up to the wintry sky. He saw its crew bailing, screaming and skittering like rats covered in soot and blood while their jackets burned like candles.
Straight into the hail of Pavolian lead.
RATATATATATATATAT!
Burning Elysian men fell into the snow, their agonizing screams cut abruptly short.
"HOLY FUCK— NOPE, SCREW THIS," the bald man cursed inside Altare's tank. He grabbed their driver by the collar of his uniform and roared at him. "REVERSE, YOU DAFT FUCK! GET US OUT!"
"HEY," Altare yelled, "THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN?! THE OBJECTIVE'S RIGHT THERE, WE DRIVE FORWARD! "
The driver rammed his foot in the pedal, shoving the steering levers back and forth, but their tank would only rattle in place.
Altare looked down at his tank's treads from his hatch. He saw their tracks dislodged from the drive wheels and splayed on the snow.
"We're tracked," Altare shouted. "Damn it to hell, they shot our fucking tracks!"
"Shit, I'm bailin'," baldie declared. He popped open his hatch on the front of the hull. "I'm gettin' the fuck out a' here!"
The other two crewmen turned to the loader and nodded. They bickered and grunted as they tried to scramble out of the front hatch.
"HEY, BALDIE, YOU'RE NOT IN COMMAND HERE," Altare yelled. "WE HOLD AND FIGHT UNTIL SECTION B COMES AROUND!"
"OH, IS THAT SO," the loader hissed. "IF YOU WANNA WAIT FOR THAT PAVIE COMMANDER OF OURS, DO IT YOURSELF! "
The loader crawled back into the tank and dragged Altare's legs down from where he stood. Altare's head slammed into the floor of the turret basket with a loud thud and he was thrown by the abandoned driver's seat. The bald man grabbed an empty ammo box and rammed it into Altare's gut as he spit. "FIGHT WITH THAT YOU OVERCONFIDENT PAVIE-LOVING PIG . I'M OUT."
Altare tried to get up on his feet, but he could only curl up into a ball on the floor of his tank. Again, he pressed his palm to his head and tried to reach over to the back. He felt a wet warmth gush from it that stained his fingers. He jolted and hissed from the pain, but he still eyed his bloodied hand.
Through his flickering gaze, he watched the loader, gunner and driver make a run for it at full sprint into the forest.
Whirr...
RATATAT! RATATAT! RATATAT!
From his bloodied perch, he saw bursts of whizzing green tracers cut down the deserting crew. The pale white snow was littered with fresh meat that tainted it crimson. Guts and limbs were torn and scattered by the merciless Pavolian storm.
How many bodies fell there, Altare didn't know. His consciousness fluttered. He felt the wintry winds blow through his rust bucket of a tank as he laid there in a pool of his own blood.
Altare blinked, but his eyelids grew heavy. His vision blackened. Tears blurred his failing sight and warmed his chilly cheeks as they rolled down his face. He couldn't even muster up the strength to wipe his own tears.
"...I'm sorry Kobo," he choked. "Your brother really is useless..."
His consciousness fluttered again. The cold threatened to lull him to sleep...
And, for a moment, he thought he could see Kobo looking over him in the tank. Her mouth moved, uttering words he couldn't hear...
But, like a downpour, it was something he could feel.
A downpour that spurred Altare to stir once more.
"...I can't," Altare muttered. He pulled himself up. "I won't die."
His trembling hands grabbed at the vacant driver's seat. He grunted and wheezed and pulled himself back up to his feet. Then, with a labored huff, he rose up to the gunner's seat and sat on it. He paused to collect himself and wipe off whatever fluids streaked down the back of his head.
Through his ringing ears, just barely within earshot, he heard the Pavolians cheering and jeering at the runners. He peered through the grimy gunner's rangefinder and through the commander's periscope. He saw the Pavolian tankers leaning out of their hatches too, examining the damage they had dealt to Section A.
Altare scanned the area around his tank even more, taking inventory of where the steel Pavolian beasts had stopped.
The panzers laid fanned out in front of his turret, exposing their weaker rear and side armor to his cold, waiting cannon. Their crews and their cannons were facing the forest as well, giving Altare the opportunity that any ace commander could merely dream of.
"...From Elysium with love, you Pavie bastards."
K A - CHUNK ! K A - BOOM ! K A - CHUNK ! K A - BOOM !
One by one, Altare slammed armor-piercing rounds into the cannon breech. He pushed the firing solenoid, traversed the turret and repeated the process all on his own. He fired at the rears of the Pavolian tanks with devastating fury.
K A - CHUNK ! K A - BOOM ! K A - CHUNK ! K A - BOOM !
He loaded and fired the cannon like a man possessed by a demon. He aimed for their gas tanks and engines, engulfing them in mighty infernos.
K A - CHUNK ! K A - BOOM ! K A - CHUNK ! K A - BOOM !
Altare's mad minute threw the Pavolians into a frenzy. Through the rangefinder, he saw Panzer crews emerging from their hatches, shouting and barking in confusion. When they did, Altare popped out of his commander's cupola and mowed them down with his .30-caliber machine gun. His screams and roars competed with the bark of his maddened gunfire.
DAKA-DAKA-DAKA-DAKA-DAKA-DAKA-DAKA-DAKA-DAKA-DAKA-DAKA!
His grip tightened enough to jam the rusty trigger in place. He emptied the entire belt of ammunition into Pavolian flesh and steel alike. His eyes burned from the muzzle flash of his own machine gun but he cackled like a tempest from the deepest depths of hell.
DAKA-DAKA-DAKA-DAKA-chak...!
"...Haaah... Haaah... Haaah..."
Altare's machine gun spat out its last burst. Its barrel glowed red hot and smoked out of every crevice and surface. Altare's ears rang and his vision blurred, but he smelled burning gasoline, gunpowder and blood - some of it his own.
His grip on the machine gun loosened as his adrenaline gave out. His arms fell limp beside him and he slumped into the commander's seat. Cold wintry winds swept in unopposed through the hatches of his tank.
Altare tried to bring his arms to his chest, huffing and puffing while he did, but he couldn't muster the strength to move at all. Grunting, he strained to flex his limbs, but he couldn't feel them. Panting, his body shivered from head to toe from the cold that consumed him. He coughed and wheezed as piercing frost forced its way through his throat, scratching - carving him from within. He wanted to claw at his own sweaty, bloodstained neck, but his bloody hands stayed limply by his sides.
…FUH-FWOOSH!
Infernos chased pillars of smoke from the smoldering hulks of Elysian and Pavolian tanks. Trapped in the cold hull of his Stuart, he couldn't see those flames, but he felt their heat and heard them just beyond his reach. The stench of smoldering equipment and men rose too. Elysian? Pavolian? Altare couldn't tell the difference from his new prison.
" I must've gotten dragged to hell with 'em, " thought Altare. His eyelids were heavier than the armor-piercing shells he had been ramming through the cold cannon breech beside him.
Surrounded by funeral pyres outside the manor on the hill, he succumbed to a slumber that his allies and foes would no longer have.
"But, good… fuckin' riddance… anyway…"
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-TEMPEST-
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